A Night in Normal
by C A Moore
Summary: Winter is stuck with nothing to do in a tiny mining town. Renting a video seems like a simple solution until she sees a familiar face in an unexpected place. After That Day AU, around a year after "Grandmother Schnee". Winter pregnancy, WhiteRose referenced but not present, LewdRose tie in (implication of Weiss heterosexual activity). Sexual references, not explicit.


Winter scowled at the shelves. Lurid implausible trash, not worth two seconds reading the description, let alone two hours watching the feature. She couldn't bring herself to spend the rest of the evening staring at the wall, and as for socialising... she shuddered. Maybe this was why "normal" people always kept a big pile of unfinished work around. Her report for the inspection had taken all of ten minutes to write, and after pacing around impatiently at the communications centre for half an hour waiting to send it, admittedly maybe making a few insensitive suggestions, she had been kindly invited to leave. Really kindly. It was happening a lot, which still took some getting used to. It wasn't that they recognised her - she had never been really personally famous and as far as she knew no Schnee had ever set foot here, they had no reason to. No sane reason. Weiss and Ruby went wherever they liked, criss-crossing the planet unannounced and generally unseen. Most of the people they saved never knew who did it. But there were no unstoppable bandits here, no legendary Grimm, so it seemed unlikely they had visited. Winter as V.P. Transport and Logistics had set out to visit and personally inspect every Schnee facility on the planet and now she had. She should celebrate, take a rest, slow down.

Slow down. From what everyone was telling her biology would be forcing that pretty soon, so her instinct was to try and get everything finished, to have the company in order. Maybe it was her version of nesting. The facility in Normal may actually have been the best run on the planet, not a trace of sloppiness even to her discerning eye. But then the conditions here were not forgiving of mistakes. The military precision made her nostalgic, she hadn't even needed to give her name, just her authorisation from head office. Everything was lined up to regulation and the logs where impeccably filled up to the minute. She had felt superfluous. People here were disciplined though possibly a little unimaginative. She shuddered to think of what sort of committee induced brain failure had led them to change the town's name to "Normal" presumably in an effort to increase its appeal. The town had been founded as Redman's Drop, a far more evocative name, and local legend held that the founder's body still lay among the razor sharp rocks at the bottom of the eponymous land feature. The more mathematically minded pointed out that the new name was a reasonable description of the right-angles abundant in the local landscape.

It was a tiny town clinging to a frozen, wind-blasted, mountaintop on a remote island. Takeoff and landing was only possible for a couple of hours a day, on a good day. Communications didn't fare much better. There may have been no Grimm trying to kill people here, but the landscape and climate where quite capable of filling the gap. The only reason to inhabit this figuratively Dust-forsaken outpost was that literally it very much wasn't - it sat atop rich deposits of some of the rarest dust types known. Yet people brought their families here, presumably preferring the callous brutality of nature to the targeted viciousness of the alternative. An extreme distillation of Mantle's foundation. Understandable she supposed, given recent unrest; Besides if you stayed inside the tunnels you could almost forget the hostile environment just outside.

None of which helped her pick a movie. The suggestion had been a reasonable one; she was being rude and getting in their way. They had politely asked if she had somewhere to stay the night, and suggested she rent a movie. It was happening all the time now, and it was infuriating. She wasn't infirm! She unconsciously wrapped her arm around her swollen abdomen. If anything she was stronger than ever; whatever mixed feelings she may have about her child's ancestry were dwarfed by a fierce maternal love for the life growing inside her. Anything that threatened it wouldn't get a second chance. She sighed and turned to leave; maybe she could find a book somewhere.

A crude hand-drawn snowflake. It caught her eye as the walked, the briefest glimpse though some curtains in the back of the shop. With some imagination and considerable concession to the obvious limitations of the artist it could be an image of the Schnee emblem. Intrigued, she walked over and into the hidden section. The shelf under the snowflake sign was labeled: 'Schnee Sisters'. Which was odd, she wasn't aware that there were any documentaries on them, let alone enough to fill a shelf. She flushed as a closer examination cleared up her misconception about the genre.

It wasn't the first time she had encountered the idea. Certain materials had come to light when lockers were being emptied during the terminations arising from one of her first surprise inspections; among mountains of what, that for no reason other than the delicacy of the euphemism, might be called "art". As her grandfather's friends used to joke, "you can tell it is art because the women aren't wearing any clothes". She hadn't given it much thought. Boxing up the varied pornography there had been some items people tried to hide from her sight. Material with what was for her a somewhat personal theme. Possibly aware of the poor likenesses presented by their models the publishers had left nothing to chance. It had been full of bad dye jobs, horrific wigs and generous use of white and snowflake patterns on the props and what little clothing was present. Weiss's scar was generally exaggerated, and often on the wrong eye. Prominent captions removed any trace of deniability... only a complete idiot would keep it in their locker at SDC and she had just fired him for that shortcoming in another context. She had never seen another human being look so terrified, she really wasn't sure what he thought she was going to do; if people could be killed for questionable taste in pornography the military would be seriously under-staffed. On the whole she was far more disturbed by the number of copies of the Remnant Wedding "R/W" Ruby-Weiss wedding edition found in contexts that did not suggest an interest in weddings or wedding planning. Never finding another copy of that magazine with the pages suspiciously stuck together would be too soon. A good horror story spreads like wildfire, and while there were more terminations for negligence she never saw any trace of porn so she had dismissed the Schnee porn as an isolated case.

Yet this wasn't just a few pictures in an niche indy fap mag, it was an entire shelf of commercially produced videos. Was there a shelf like this in every town on the planet? She grimly scanned the selection. Maybe she was famous, but it was no wonder no one recognised her. As with the printed material, there was a lot of white hair. The likenesses hadn't improved; 'Winter' material was as easily distinguished by the hints of bondage and domination as by any physical characteristics of the star. 'Weiss' seemed to be associated with softer, more accomodating scenarios. The less said about the joint projects the better. A few of the covers stood out from the crowd; Winter froze, horrified. They were low key - no carefully non-infringing snowflakes, no punning name references; the publishers knew they didn't need that, just a big clear picture of the star.

'Snow White' was in a class of her own, for the hair alone, but it went further than that. Staring up from the cover wearing very little but a smile was the perfect image of her younger sister. She frantically inspected the boxes hoping for contrary evidence. It seemed that Snow White was a trusting and very friendly girl with a busy social and professional life... so busy that she always seemed to end up entertaining a crowd... and Snow was so eager to please. It was a theme on all the volumes, except for... a quick glance at the back cover expanded her sexual vocabulary, establishing that 'train' was not a part of a dress or a transport vehicle. Definitely a theme. It couldn't be Weiss; it had to be a fake; careful posing and a little retouching, she told herself without very much conviction. Weiss was gay, and married to Ruby... but that was the problem, when those two got together there was very little they wouldn't do. As if their family didn't have enough scandal brewing. There was one way to tell for sure - she was sure that seeing her move and hearing her voice she would always recognise her sister, no matter how good the fake. With her path clear Winter moved quickly to complete her plan, up to a point.

That point was standing at the counter with a pile of Weiss porn contemplating the delicacy of her position.  
"Charge card?" she repeated, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. She had the card alright, but not only was it a company card, it had her real name on it. It didn't bear thinking about.

"Sorry it's policy to take a deposit. People who pass though this town tend not to come back"

"Um. Is there any way I could do it with cash?" She read the girl's name tag, Grey, colour naming stripped to its essential elements, and rendered pointless in the process, very Normal.

"I suppose we could. I think there is a form somewhere." She started digging around behind the counter "Do you have ID?"

Winter put her hand over her eyes and took a deep steadying breath. Ordinary people could rent a movie without it turning into a farce.

Grey seemed to take pity on her.  
"You could buy them. We just got the box set in"

Winter breathed a sigh of relief.  
"Yes. Thank you"

A minute later with the rentals stashed behind the desk and the newly purchased box set safely stowed in a plain brown bag she was feeling far more relaxed.

"You won't regret it. They even put in a high def version of the White Fang video, I knew that was a stunt. It's not really my thing, but nobody rides cock like Snow White"

Since the sale was completed, Winter sensed a bit more that simple sales pitch. She could probe the horrors of this White Fang video later, for the moment she might as well be polite.  
"You're a fan?"

"I'm a Weiss girl" she grinned, "Snow mostly does het but she's authentic, she looks amazing, and she has this great energy" Grey ran her eyes pointedly up and down Winter's outfit. "She doesn't do the sister stuff"

Winter let her honest answer slip out without thinking.  
"That's a relief"

Grey smiled. It seemed she had passed some sort of test. The shopgirl rushed around the counter to hold the door open for Winter.  
"That's not an easy look but you really pull it off" She eyed the expectant mother thoughtfully. "I think I haven't given Winter enough of a chance. I've got to close up here, but if you would be up for a foot rub later?" A rather blatant wink made it clear even to Winter's under-developed sexual radar that the foot rub might extend a long way upwards.

The auxiliary realisation hit Winter as a shock. Grey thought she was a fellow fan, dressed up as, well, herself, and she was propositioning her on that basis. She had seen a heavily pregnant woman, literally walking evidence of heterosexuality, and she was trying to get in her pants. Of course purchasing a big pile of Weiss porn was rather incriminating. Besides, being hit on was better than being wrapped in cotton wool, and she couldn't help smiling at the audacity.  
"Thanks, but sorry, I'm not looking for company," she gestured at her belly, "or not more company"

"Worth a try, not a lot of hot women in this town" The line was delivered with a carefree tone and an impish grin that reminded Winter of a certain speedster sister in law. Maybe she really was a 'Weiss girl'.

Author's note: Readers of "Grandmother Schnee" may have some inkling who the _father_ is. Originally this was going to stop here, just a little piece about Winter struggling with social awkwardness (but still doing better than she used to). However it occurs to me that it will take her all of ten seconds to check Snow White's identity, then she will still have an evening to fill... cue reaction story of Winter watching Weiss themed porn, making notes for a proper critique... hard to resist, so I may be coming back to this at some point.


End file.
